Croce released his first album, Facets, in 1966, with 500 copies pressed. The album had been financed with a $500 wedding gift from Croce’s parents, who set a condition that the money must be spent to make an album. They hoped that he would give up music after the album failed, and use his college education to pursue a “respectable” profession.[9] However, the album proved a success, with every copy sold.

1960s

From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Croce performed with his wife as a duo. At first, their performances included songs by artists such as Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Woody Guthrie, but in time they began writing their own music. During this time, Croce got his first long-term gig at a rural bar and steak house in Lima, Pennsylvania, called The Riddle Paddock. His set list covered several genres, including blues, country, rock and roll, and folk.

Croce married his wife Ingrid in 1966, and converted to Judaism, as his wife was Jewish, though he became non-practicing and was generally anti-organized religion. He and Ingrid were married in a traditional Jewish ceremony.[10] He enlisted in the Army National Guard that same year to avoid being drafted and deployed to Vietnam, and served on active duty for four months, leaving for duty a week after his honeymoon.[11] Croce, who was not good with authority, had to go through basic training twice.[12] He said he would be prepared if “there’s ever a war where we have to defend ourselves with mops”.

In 1968, the Croces were encouraged by record producer Tommy West to move to New York City. The couple spent time in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx and recorded their first album with Capitol Records. During the next two years, they drove more than 300,000 miles,[13] playing small clubs and concerts on the college concert circuit promoting their album Jim & Ingrid Croce.

Becoming disillusioned by the music business and New York City, they sold all but one guitar to pay the rent and returned to the Pennsylvania countryside, settling in an old farm in Lyndell, where Croce got a job driving trucks and doing construction work to pay the bills while continuing to write songs, often about the characters he would meet at the local bars and truck stops and his experiences at work; these provided the material for such songs as “Big Wheels” and “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues“.

1970s

The couple returned to Philadelphia and Croce decided to be “serious” about becoming a productive member of society. “I’d worked construction crews, and I’d been a welder while I was in college. But I’d rather do other things than get burned,” he later said. His determination to be “serious” led to a job at a Philadelphia R&B AM radio station, WHAT, where he translated commercials into “soul”. “I’d sell airtime to Bronco’s Poolroom and then write the spot: “You wanna be cool, and you wanna shoot pool… dig it.”

In 1970, Croce met the classically trained pianist-guitarist and singer-songwriter Maury Muehleisen from Trenton, New Jersey through producer Joe Salviuolo. Salviuolo had been friends with Croce when they attended Villanova University together, and Salviuolo later discovered Muehleisen when he was teaching at Glassboro State College in New Jersey. Salviuolo brought the Croce and Muehleisen duo together at the production office of Tommy West and Terry Cashman in New York City. Initially, Croce backed Muehleisen on guitar at his gigs but in time their roles reversed, with Muehleisen adding lead guitar to Croce’s music.

As his career picked up, Croce began touring the United States with Muehleisen, performing live, including in large coffee houses, on college campuses, and at folk festivals. However, Croce’s financial situation was still dire. The record company had fronted him the money to record the album, and much of the money the album earned went back to pay the advance. In February 1973, Croce and Muehleisen traveled to Europe to promote the album, visiting London, Paris, and Amsterdam, and getting positive reviews. Croce also began appearing on television, including onDon Kirshner’s Rock Concert and The Midnight Special, which he co-hosted. In July 1973, Croce and Muehleisen again visited London and performed on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Croce finished recording the album I Got a Name one week before his death. During his tours, Croce grew increasingly homesick, and decided to take a break from music and settle down with his wife and infant son after his Life and Times tour was completed.[14][15] In a letter to his wife which arrived after his death, Croce stated his intention to quit music and stick to writing short stories and movie scripts as a career, and withdraw from public life.[16][17]

An investigation showed that the plane crashed on take off after clipping a pecan tree at the end of the runway. The plane failed to gain enough altitude to clear the tree and did not maneuver to avoid it, even though it was the only tree for hundreds of yards. It was reported as dark, but with clear sky, calm winds, and over five miles of visibility with haze. The report from the NTSB[20] listed the probable cause as the pilot’s failure to see and avoid obstructions due to pilot physical impairment and fog obstructing vision. The 57-year-old charter pilot suffered from severe coronary artery disease and had run three miles to the airport from a motel. He had an ATP Certificate, 14,290 hours total flight time and 2,190 hours in the Beech 18 type.[20] A later investigation placed sole blame for the accident on pilot error due to his downwind takeoff into a “black hole”.[21]

The Croces’ son Adrian James (born September 28, 1971) is a singer-songwriter, musician, and pianist, and he owns and operates his own record label, Seedling Records.[26]

From 1985 to 2013 Ingrid Croce owned and managed Croce’s Restaurant & Jazz Bar—a project she and Croce had jokingly discussed a decade earlier—in the historic Gaslamp Quarter in downtown San Diego.[27] On July 3, 2012, she published a memoir about her husband, entitled I Got a Name: The Jim Croce Story.[28]